Category Archives: morality

A Necessary Start

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Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is on the verge of issuing actual rules (not “guidance” letters) directing the way in which colleges and universities must handle accusations of sexual assault.  These rules will include

  • the right of every survivor to be taken seriously and the right of every person accused to know that guilt is not predetermined
  • both the alleged victim and the accused would be able to inspect and review all evidence
  • All Title IX hearings would include cross-examination, which could occur in-person or by live stream, with campus adjudicators allowed to observe the demeanor of witnesses as they assess credibility
  • statements of anyone who refuses cross-examination could not be considered in the final determination Title IX judges would be required to consider both inculpatory and exculpatory evidence.
  • acknowledges that schools’ “treatment of both complainant and respondent could constitute discrimination on the basis of sex”
  • both the alleged victim and the accused would enjoy the same opportunities for appeal, and, if both parties agreed, administrators could offer informal resolution processes like mediation
  • universities could still use a weaker “preponderance of evidence” as the standard of proof, similar to civil cases, rather than a higher “clear and convincing evidence” standard.

The proposal is a good start toward redressing the inequities of the Obama administration’s infamous Dear Colleague Letter, but there remain a couple of serious weaknesses.

One is the continued use of the preponderance of evidence standard.  The problem with this is that accusations of assault, whether sexual or other, are accusations of felonies.  That demands the clear and convincing evidence standard.  Related to this is the investigation and adjudication itself.  Such accusations demand the police and a criminal court conduct the investigation and trial, not the school and its administrators.  Sexual harassment accusations also need a more serious standard of proof than 50%-plus-one-minim of belief.

And: as long as acquittals—however a college/university wants to style them—are appealable by the accuser, there still is no justice possible in the proceedings or the rules that structure them.

That Progressive-Democrats object even to this nod toward justice, though, is instructive for 2020 and what a Progressive-Democrat Congress and White House will do to individual liberty.

Bullying

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You can’t wear the clothes you can afford to buy, that are good quality, and that look nice without being ostentatious (you can’t wear your ostentatious rags, either, come to that).  That’s bullying, don’t you know.

That’s the attitude of the Church of England’s Woodchurch High School in northwestern England (it’s across the Mersey from Liverpool—yes, that Mersey).  They’re pretending to “poverty proof” their school, so they sent a letter to their students’ significant overseers (the institution actually refered to “parents/carers”:

As you are all aware from an email that was sent out yesterday, pupils will not be permitted to bring in Canadian (sic) Goose and Monclair (sic) coats after the Christmas break.

In the name of anti-bullying, then, this school’s management is going to bully a different group of kids.  Because clothes make the child, not what he’s taught about character.

Their hypocrisy stinks.

Schism?

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The US Conference of Catholic Bishops met last week to consider, among other things, two important mutual accountability proposals that would begin to address the Catholic Church’s history of child molestation by members of the Catholic priesthood—some of whom have gone on to rise in the ranks of Church hierarchy.  The proposals also were simple enough: one simply applied a zero-tolerance policy for sex abuse, and the other would have created an independent review board to investigate claims against bishops and refer credible cases directly to the Vatican.  (I’ll elide the latter’s being a matter of having the weasel rule on alleged violations of the hen house.)

Then Pope Francis told them to sit down and shut up.  Which they meekly did, without action on those proposals.

What to make of these bishops’ timidity? One conclusion is that fealty to a Church prince is more important than protecting our children.

Here’s Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of the San Francisco Archdiocese on the matter:

We’ve heard how important it is to listen to our people.

Sure. But what’s the value of “listening” if you won’t act on their concerns?  Or better, knowing these things are happening, act on your own initiative, not needing to have the concerns of the parents surfaced first as though if they don’t speak up, there’s no problem?

How will we discriminate your “listening” from your simply hearing a noisily empty cacophony?

Do we need an American Catholicism separate from the Vatican’s Catholicism, loosely (perhaps very loosely) analogous to the Church of England’s separation from the Vatican? One that keeps (most of) the foundational tenets of Catholicism, but that also holds the safety of children sacred?

After all, the Church of England was born of a concern for children, too, albeit from a different direction.

CNN Strikes Again

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That’s fairly literal, this time.  CNN‘s “star” reporter on the White House beat, Jim Acosta, struck a White House intern who was trying to do her job.  Since then, CNN has denied—and it’s actually serious about it—that the strike ever occurred.

“She [White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders] provided fraudulent accusations and cited an incident that never happened,” CNN said.

The blow was delivered during a presser President Donald Trump was holding and near the end of a contentious exchange between Trump and Acosta.  During such pressers and as a normal part of presser procedure, reporters wishing to ask questions are called on by the President and handed a microphone so that the President, all the other reporters in the room, and especially all of us in TV-land watching can hear the reporter’s question.  The intern, as was her job, had approached Acosta to take the microphone that had been handed him on being called on so that, his turn having ended, she could pass it to the next reporter, that person having just been called on.

Acosta refused to give up the microphone, and when the intern tried to grab it anyway, he chopped down on her arm with his free hand.  That’s clear in the video Fox News has included in its piece (the link above) on the incident.  The intern’s approach and Acosta’s hitting her begins at about 0:22 of the video.

That video clearly shows Acosta striking the intern as she tried to do her job. Not a hard blow, certainly, but Acosta striking the woman at all is unacceptable. Bad as that is, though, CNN‘s pride in and open lie about Acosta’s misbehavior is worse—CNN seems to be validating its reporters getting physical with anyone who gets in their way, including others trying to do their job.

Race and College Admission

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During final arguments in the civil suit against Harvard over its use of race in its admission decisions, Harvard’s lawyers insisted that

plaintiffs had to prove admissions officers were motivated by racial animus….

This is a disingenuous argument, though. Racial animus isn’t necessary to get a disparate impact ruling.  With disparate impact established in the courts, for the time being, it’s clear that racial animus doesn’t have to be proved in Harvard’s bias case, either.

The Harvard lawyers weren’t through, though.

Harvard’s lawyers said race is only used as a preference among the most competitive applicants, in the same way exceptional musical talent can make a difference in admissions.

Here is the lie of the Harvard personnel. They deny race plays a role, yet they admit using race to play a role.

Beyond that, applicants’ musical talent (for instance) is entirely under those applicants’ control to acquire. Their race, however, is an accident of birth over which they have no control.  It’s an entirely irrelevant and valueless characteristic in determining merit.